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Why not become an instructor?

carlmeek wrote:

Once that’s out of the way, never again hopefully

IME (still fairly new at this though) this depends entirely on the candidate and in particular on the age of the candidate. Teenagers, no problem, they learn everything in 20h. Flying is very much a muscle memory kind of thing, and the older you get, the harder it gets to “teach your muscles”. Things have to be repeated over and over again once you have passed 40. Ideally, flying should be thought as soon as they are large enough to reach the rudders, and it can be done in 5-10 h, and it never will be forgotten (rusty yes, forgotten no). It’s not difficult to fly, it’s mostly the ability to learn new coordination skills that severely deteriorates when passing 30-40 at least, while it is at a peak when young (below 20 and preferably earlier).

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

As I have no doubt written already, IMHO the instructional scene has big problems adjusting the training approach to different clients.

It would be hugely non-PC to write down a few obvious population categories but basically the way you would approach a person with

  • no education
  • no engineering/science education (and assuming zero interest in these)
  • engineering/science education and working in some such discipline
  • A Ruby on Rails / assembler / PHP programmer (or a similarly warped person )

would be different.

Yet, from what I have seen, few if any FIs are able to differentiate the techniques.

Very often they slag off professional / business people who have done well in their own field, as being arrogant / unwilling to learn (which is true only some of the time, and is often a reflection of an inept instructor who clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about).

There are a couple well known instructor personalities in the UK (both female, as it happens) who have both written really scathing and frankly stupidly stereotypical articles on these types of people.

Yet, nearly all the people who manage to gring through the whole sausage machine, throw enough money at it, and end up in a position to actually go anywhere for real, getting their own plane (or a share) and end up flying from A to B without having a constant company of other pilots (for emotional support or cost sharing), and manage to do this for years, are nearly all extracted from this category; all supposedly the sort of people who are an absolute bastard to teach anything! The rest of the PPL scene has a very high attrition rate; in the UK around 90% in the first 1-2 years.

If I was an instructor, the first thing I would ask the candidate is about their background, education, etc. It makes a vast difference with aircraft systems, particularly avionics.

Here is a funny old thread somewhat on this topic; one of the first threads on EuroGA.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Anyone on here who became a MEP IR Instructor after Jar/Easa? 30h PIC for the MEP CRI, no one has that… this will be an issue in a few years.

always learning
LO__, Austria

Very much so; 30hrs MEP PIC is going to cost something like €15k in wet rental. Unless you cost-share it, but there aren’t going to be many takers for equal shares.

It’s a good point; all the ME instructors I know personally got their papers decades ago.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I got mine relatively recently under EASA, but I had the hours.

Isn’t the point of the IRI and CRI that you want to harness the experience of people who have learned practical flying over an extended career, rather than using it as a way of building hours?

EGKB Biggin Hill

Timothy wrote:

Isn’t the point of the IRI and CRI that you want to harness the experience of people who have learned practical flying over an extended career, rather than using it as a way of building hours?

Yes definitely!

always learning
LO__, Austria

Noe wrote:

I’ll check tomorrow with the CAA if it was an error somewhere in the paperwork (either on our end – filling it up – on on theirs – processing)

The CAA never replied to my email, but I just got back to london after 3 weeks of US and found a new licence with FCL.945 waiting on my desk (. I’m assuming it was an error on their part, since they didn’t ask for any money.

While the amended licence arrived 13 days after my email, I never got a reply by email, which isn’t great communication from the CAA

Last Edited by Noe at 03 Jul 11:13

Hello to everyone! I’m a fresh new instructor!
Unfortunately, i’m a PPL holder with no TK. (I’m an air traffic controller).
Before to start the training, evaluating between CRI and FI course (also thinking about the cost!) I was assured from the Flight scholl that as FI (also without TK) is possible to teach all the staff that a CRI can. Now, going a little bit indeep and also reading some forum I understand that this is not. After received my new licence from the Authority i wrote them back to ask clarification about that point (They put in my licence the Privileges FCL.910.FI Training for LAPL ONLY
(no answer received)
It really hard to believe and understand how a training as FI consisting of 30 hrs flt time, Do not qualify you as a training of 3 hrs (my school elevate to 5 ). Really a no sense. If this limitation will be clear europewidely I think that noone about GA will decide to became a FI. Doing the TK CPL, its a really hard staff. (I tried!) Personal issue, family, work, this lead to a shortage of time on a daily basis to use for study. This moves the Flight school enviroment to fresh Atpl Pilot, that noAirlines want to hire, or may be they do not like the Airline stile of life. They will teach what they have been teached, to be frustrated on A Cessna 152 thinking to an A320. Noone teach them to land in few meters, to lift off on a wheel with a tail dragger, or as to come back on your step in front of a mountain peak that you are not able to overfly, with a barrel roll. The pleasure of flying! Waiting fot my CAA reply i hope that as someone says this limit for PPL NoTK will be removed, but at least giving to FI limited the privileges to act as a CRI. Now if the worst scenario will be confirmed i have to evaluate to undergo to a CRI training! it’s really incredible! Thanks to everybody to provide info to FI community!

Italy
Before to start the training, evaluating between CRI and FI course (also thinking about the cost!) I was assured from the Flight scholl that as FI (also without TK) is possible to teach all the staff that a CRI can. Now, going a little bit indeep and also reading some forum I understand that this is not. After received my new licence from the Authority i wrote them back to ask clarification about that point (They put in my licence the Privileges FCL.910.FI Training for LAPL ONLY

Certainly a FI can do everything a CRI can. The restriction to LAPL ONLY concerns initial flight training — not training with someone who already has a license.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 09 Jul 07:40
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

If that’s true, that makes the rule even more ridiculous. So an FI with no CPL-TK can do an ab-initio LAPL, then upgrade them to a PPL? surely not?

The main issue here is that not many people do the LAPL, so it proves to be a very serious restriction.

EGKL, United Kingdom
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